The man was running fiercely across the white, flat plain, with only some rocks and arching green beams as features of the area. The sky was grey, hinting at the chaos to come. He had to reach the other Warriors of Cosmos before it was too late, and the battle began without him. "Might I be too late...?" he pondered curiously. "No, I have to make it!" he shouted breathlessly. "I will not give up on something such as this. I cannot, if only for my comrade's sake!"
All of a sudden, seemingly out of nothingness, a figure appeared to impede the man's progress, causing the running man to stop and stare in shock. However, he was no ordinary man. He looked to be made out of a blue crystal, and was a striking image of the man that it had stopped, down to the armour with two horns built into them and the sword that it was wielding.
"What kind of abomination is that?!" the man wondered aloud, not liking how things were turning out. At that, the imitation pointed it's sword at the man, wishing to engage him in a fight. But the man was in a great hurry, and had no time for such petty encounters as these. There was only one definitive way to sort something like this out.
"Intervene and be slain!" he yelled, pointing his sword at it. The imitation did the same pose. The man sighed in frustration. "Fine, if you will not let pass, then I will force my way though you!" At that, the man ran forwards, swinging his sword about in all directions. The imitation was defeated in a heartbeat, and the man breathed a sigh of relief, glad that it was over, and that he could now concentrate on the task at hand.
However, it was obviously the task of these imitations to not let him though, as he was confronted by another one, and then yet another one. In fact, the latter one had caused the man to become so emotional that his armour and weapons had changed mid-battle, and he inflicted six rapid slashes on the imitation, throwing it high into the air and overkilling it into oblivion. But, they were defeated as easily as the first one had been, and the man internally celebrated as he moved onwards.
Pausing a moment to catch his breath back, the man shut his eyes, and thought back to the moment that he had first appeared in this new place. He had been training with the other Warriors of Light outside the city of Cornelia, training to protect the citizens and residents of both the town itself, and the castle that dominated the skyline. Suddenly, he had fallen unconscious, and the next thing he knew, he had awoken on this plain, with no idea how he had gotten there. All he knew was, a mysterious voice, calling herself Cosmos, he told him to meet the others for a massive battle of good versus evil.
The Warrior opened his eyes, and saw another man walking towards him. The man was also wearing amour and a cloak, but in a dark and light blue colouration, respectively. He was carrying a great number of weapons on him, including an axe, lance, bow and sword. The man who had approached spoke up. "Good to see that you're safe and sound, fellow comrade," the man said in a relieved tone of voice. "My name's Firion. What's yours?" As much as the Warrior wanted to find out what was going on, and to learn some of his comrade's names, there was no time to be sitting around.
"The pulses of disorder are getting stronger!" the Warrior contemplated as he looked around him. The two of them stare off into the distance, each one contemplating exactly what the words meant for them personally. Firion nodded in agreement. "Let us hurry. The fighting is far from over! We must win, or there is no foreseeable future for us."
The two men ran off in that direction together, uncertain for the future, but confident in the fact that they weren't alone in winning this fight – if not the war.
After much running, the Warrior and Firion had finally reached the other Warriors of Cosmos. There were eight people waiting there – seven males, and one woman, looking extremely nervous, with dazzling blond hair, and wearing a red top and white stockings with red polka dots on them. She was standing next to a child of no more than seven-eight, wearing red armour, and a large feather in the top of the helmet.
He himself stood next to a teenager, who was wearing a dark yellow hooded shirt, which showed off some of the toned muscles that the boy had presumably developed from training heavily, and was torn quite a bit. The shorts were also torn, with one leg being longer than the other, and he was also holding an unusual sword. Inside, there looked to be a good amount of water inside, and some bubbles were rising from all around it. They, and the rest of the Warriors, were staring at something in the distance, waiting for something to happen.
As the sky got darker, thunder and lightning dashed about the sky, like nothing any of them had ever seen before. They prepared their weapons for a tough battle, trepidation heavy in their hearts. The ground in the distance quickly tore apart and lifted into the sky, creating a platform. Shortly afterwards, bright orange magma roared out of the ground, nearly blinding them after the continual darkness.
As if in a serial dream, figured began to walk out of the magma, faint at first due to the distance, but soon enough, getting larger and clearer. The Warriors scowled at the development, realising that it was their eternal foes from their respective homelands. Behind the villains, the magma roared and churned, and seemed to create an outline of a fierce demon with large wings, and two horns on its head. On the other hand, a hole appeared in the thick clouds above the Warriors, and a body of a woman, with her arms and hands outstretched was formed from them. This seemed to give them, if possible, even more hope and courage that they could win this battle, despite the cost it might bring.
It was the villains who made the first one, running and leaping off the cliff, with no apparent concern for their safety. The Warriors ran forward, brandishing their swords and preparing for anything that might come at them. The Warrior was the first to reach his foe, fighting a man clad entirely in armour, so that not even his face could be seen. His name was Garland, and the sword was special, as it could transform into a number of different weapons, including a whip, an axe, and a lance, to name but a few. He had been a loyal knight to the Kingdom, before betraying everybody, and kidnapping the king's youngest daughter. The Warrior hadn't known what had happened to him before now.
The fought intently, trying multiple times to strike each other, but each continually blocked the other's attacks, allowing them no progress. All of a sudden, a man with spiky blond hair stepped in to help the Warrior. He was wearing a dark purple turtleneck jumper, a harness to keep the black trousers up, and a metal pauldron on his left shoulder. The man's most distinctive feature was the massive sword he was dragging across the ground. The sword itself was as big as Garland's, hopefully meaning that more progress could be made in terms of attacks being successfully landed. The Warrior moved away, fully intending to help out other warriors in need.
However, the blond haired was knocked away, and from behind him appeared a semi-naked woman, with two yellow tentacles with mouths on them, and being partially covered by a large red cloak. She was charging up a ball of energy, which would have hit him, had a man with a lance stepped in the way, and deflected it away from harm. Abruptly, he changed from a man wearing black armour covering his face and showing off his developed chest, to a man who was wearing white armour, carrying an ornate lance, and having white hair. Turning around, he saw a villain leap into the air, weapon at the ready. The man prepared for the inevitable blow.
Still up on the high ledge, a woman wearing a body length red coat with a fur edge on the collar was preparing an attack that would cover a large area, and do great damage to the Warriors of Cosmos. Before the bullets of energy could hit anyone, though, the girl put up a barrier to stop them from hitting her or her companions. However, they deflected off, and were heading in the direction of the small boy in red armour, who ran away from them; mastering all the energy he could to stay alive. He leaped over the massive beam that the woman with the tentacles had produced, and did a few futile hits on Garland, who was distracted by the man in white. Some of the bullets hit Garland, and appeared to do a bit of damage to him.
At the same time, an old teenager was running alongside the child. He wore stripy, skin-tight leggings, a blue cloak, but strangely, he didn't have a sword on him, despite the situation at hand. The two of them were dodging a number of lightning strikes that were coming down around them, from purple floating balls of energy. After a little while, however, the kid was thrown up into the air. This appeared to make the other person angry, as he summoned a sword from somewhere, and leaped into the air to deal with the person who had committed the act. It turned out to be a man with a very pale face, wearing a purple cloak and gold armour, as well as manipulating a fancy lance.
Meanwhile, a man with long, flowing, silver hair, a black coat held together with an ornate belt and a silver, carrying an elongated sword, was in the middle of a duel with a teenager, had who had short brunette hair, wearing a black leather coat with a white fur trim on the collar, and duelling with a sword that also had a trigger on it, for an unknown purpose to everybody else but himself. The two of them were running across the ground, and then up the side of the cliff, with neither of them pausing for a moment, least the other get a hit in. They continued the fight in the air, the brunette's sword glowed a bright blue colour, preparing for an attack. But, like the other attacks that had been performed thus far, these too were blocked skilfully. The man with the long sword made it glow briefly, and then sent a blade of energy towards the other man.
Back on the ground, Firion was engaged in battle with a tanned warrior of the demon that had appeared before. The middle aged man was wearing no shirt, and had tattooed onto his chest a large stylisation of the letter 'J', which could also be seen as a 'T'. On his left shoulder and right leg were tufts of cream coloured fur, and he was fighting with a sword with an arrow point on the end of it. The two of them were fighting in an extreme close combat situation, each one staring directly into the eyes of the other. The blast from the man's long sword threw itself into the ground, separating the two fighters. However, each of them managed to gain their balance as the ground beneath Firion was thrown up into the air in small pieces, controlled by a man with full dark blue armour and a large blue cloak swirling about him. Both of his hands were glowing from the untold energy that they contained. Along with the rocks, he too was also floating in mid-air.
Firion, deeply surprised by the developments, barely struggled to hold on as he was sliding off the rock that he had attached himself to. The tattooed man, meanwhile, was fully running down his rock, and leaped into the air, only to land on Firion's rock causing him to let go and fall to the ground. Luckily, he had a long line and hook on him, which he used to pierce a rock, and swing in a wide arc towards relative safety.
On the other side of the battlefield, a man with an ambidextrous rat tail, wearing blue trousers and knee high loose boots, and sporting two daggers simultaneously was heavily engaged in battle with a man who looked like a demonic clown, what with the white painted face and mix-mash of all sorts of clothes and colours, topped off by his evil cackling laugh, which he was using with great effect to unnerve his opponent. The former was currently blocking multiple fire attacks from the latter, whilst simultaneously dodging the rocks that were still floating about. The attacks came sporadically, so the rat tail guy couldn't predict when they would come.
Unexpectedly, he was grabbed by the tail, spun around a few times, and thrown into the air, far away from his opponent. At the same time, the leggings man was holding onto his yellow coloured sword for dear life, which he had stuck into one of the floating rocks before he slipped off, and was in pain from the smaller loose rocks falling past him, hitting his bare skin. Above him was a man dressed similarly to the man who was holding the rocks up, except his armour and cape were sky blue in colour, and the former was much more ornate, with gold trimmings. He carried a basic sword, but was very evidently more effective in dealing with magic, as shown by his attempt to kill the man dangling by a tread.
Before he could do such a thing, though, he was knocked backwards by the man with the rat tail, who had gotten some help from the teenager with the water sword. He had desperately ran forward when he had seen Firion beginning to fall, skilfully back-flipping over a man who had lavender coloured hair and was wearing a thong, surrounded by white balls of some spell or other. He fired them at the running man, but he managed to dodge all of them expertly. The spell followed him, but the teenager ignored them, as he was more focused on helping his friend out.
Seeing the rat-tail person falling, the water sword person stopped momentarily, and he did a powerful standing jump, launching him high into the air. Spinning around rapidly to allow him to stay aloft for longer, the two were the same height when the former wrapped his tail around the latter's leg. The spin gave more thrust to the forward motion, allowing the rat tailed person to stop the man in the sky blue armour.
In the intervening time, the woman on the cliff had been throwing down yet more bolts of energy onto the battlefield. However, this was stopped when the woman in polka dot tights continually dodged out of harm's way by back flipping to various heights. The man in the gold armour looked on with interest, as she created a circle with some strange symbols within. As the circle began to glow brightly, purple spheres surrounded her and it, and bolts of energy came down from them, trapping her within. But these were destroyed, as the kid in red armour, the man with the massive sword, and the Warrior protected her from harm by standing in her way.
All of the Warriors of Cosmos had gathered together again, as had the villains; and they both tried an all out assault. Suddenly, they had disappeared into coloured lights and flew up into the sky. Where to, nobody knew – only the Gods did, and they weren't going to be telling any time soon. Once they had disappeared, the sky cleared of the dark imposing clouds, and the physical landscape was restored to how it had been before the battle had began – bright white with very little features.
The Warrior of Light slowly opened his eyes, after being used to the darkness that had been unconsciousness. He groaned, and wondered where in the world he was now. After a moment's reflection, he realised that he was in Cosmos' place – the place where his adventure had began. He stood up and looked around, and noticed that he was alone again, left to his own devices. He sighed in frustration, wondering what it was he was supposed to do.
All of a sudden, he heard a voice that he recognised easily – it was Cosmos, and it sounded like she was in trouble. "I have been defeated," she said wearily. Yet, she wasn't anywhere that the Warrior could see, so he assumed that she was speaking telepathically. "Cosmos!" he shouted, in case she could hear him. He had to find her, and find out what was wrong. But she already had an answer for him. "I could not...protect the world," she replied in the same tone as before. He began running in a random direction, hoping that it was the right one, when a pillar of light appeared to his side. He stopped and looked at it, wondering whether it would take him directly to Cosmos. He weighed up the pros and cons, and decided to chance it.
Stepping out of the portal, he noticed that he was in exactly the same place as he was previously, and wondered why that way. After thinking about it for a moment or two whilst walking to conserve his energy, he decided that he didn't have enough information to come to even a speculative answer. Thus, he continued on his way.
Along the way to his unknown destination, he fought yet another imitation of himself. "Why do they always wish to fight at the most inconvenient times," the Warrior thought to himself angrily. "And what are they in the first place?" he wondered curiously. He certainly wasn't expecting a reply from Cosmos, but was glad when he did.
"They are Manikins... Shadow entities employed by Chaos's forces as troops," she divulged. "They are used to weaken and pick the Warriors off."
"Such shallow imitations have no chance against me. I have trained my whole life for the unexpected," the Warrior somewhat boasted to himself, although he wasn't sure how he would cope against any stronger versions of himself.
He continued onwards, fighting against several more of these Manikins, each victory making him feel as if he was getting stronger all the time. Eventually, he reached a manikin that looked rather different from all the others that he had fought thus far. Cosmos gave him some comfort in his personal hour of need.
"Remember, Warrior of Light... Even in the darkest of times, there is always a light. Believe in your own radiance... Never give up... There is always a way..." she practically whispered. The Warrior could tell that things were seriously getting desperate.
"Cosmos...? Cosmos!" he yelled, but she didn't reply. Taking this to be a sign of a bad omen, he made his way forwards. "I must find her... I have no time for such interruptions!" he shouted at the Manikin, which resembled Garland in every way, except that it was light cyan in colour.
The fight began with the Warrior being thrown backwards from an unexpected blow. He responded by hitting it was a combination of his stoutly shield and his sword, which threw the Manikin into the air. The Warrior followed closely behind it, hitting it at every opportunity. When it was nearing the ground from its decent, the Warrior dealt the killing blow, causing it to moan in its defeat.
Afterwards, the Warrior continued forwards in his search for Cosmos. Having travelled for quite a while, he was beginning to feel tired, but he had to keep going – for her sake at least. A while later, he saw someone ahead of him, collapsed on a small throne, in the middle of the empty area. He realised that it must have been Cosmos, and ran towards her. He noticed that she was glowing slightly.
"Cosmos! I am glad that I have managed to find you at last," he panted, the run having taken the last of the breath from him. He kneeled in front of her, as a sign of his immense respect towards her. But she had some disturbing words for him in response. "I have been defeated by Chaos." He held out his hand, wanting to help her so much, but knowing that he couldn't. She looked him in the eye when she spoke next. "The god of discord, Chaos... His brutal powers have destroyed the balance of all things, threatening the fabric of reality itself."
"What do you mean?" the Warrior enquired, but she took no notice of him as she produced several intertwining beams of light, and sent them into the sky. This process caused several astral projections to appear where the other Warriors of Cosmos were located, allowing them to hear the next part of her message to them all.
There were four groups in all, formed when they had disappeared into the sky after the battle had concluded. One group was made up of the male with the rat tail, and the teenager with the tight leggings. Another was made up of Firion, the man who could change appearance instantaneously, the young man with the large sword, and the teenager with the water sword. The third group consisted of the only female Warrior, as well as the kid with the feather in his helmet. The final group was made up of just the man with the trigger on his sword. The message was thus:
"All existence is on the brink of doom. Ten of you remain--and you are the last hope left to this world. I implore you. Obtain the light that even in a broken world could never fade-- the light of the crystals. The crystals embody the strength to face despair. With ten gathered, there is hope yet to save the world. The path to your crystal will be perilous... and different for each and every one of you. But you must believe in and follow your own path. Even if you know not where that path leads..."
There was a moment's pause, and the latter spoke up first. The Warrior could hear him as if he was in the room himself. "Not a problem. I've always gotten by on my own," he expressed emotionlessly, as he put his sword on his right shoulder.
Meanwhile, the first two people were joking around with each other. "If the treasure were really that easy to find, it wouldn't be a treasure hunt, would it?" the rat tailed person stated obviously. "Defiantly no horsing around, though. This isn't the time for games. It's time for some serious fun," the other replied seriously, but eagerness creeping into his voice by the end. The other nodded in agreement.
In another place, where there were few large land surfaces and a strange green liquid was flowing up the sides, the boy was comforting the woman. "You don't have to worry. I'm here with you. If it gets scary, just believe in me!" he said to her affirmably, holding his hand over his heart. The woman nodded. "I'm counting on you," she said with a smile.
The largest group, in the meantime, were having their own discussion. "The paths to our crystals may be different for each of us. But we've strength in our allies," confirmed the man with his face covered. Firion responded with the affirmative. "And if we put all that strength together, we'll have nothing to fear."
However, the man with the large sword wasn't quite as positive as his comrades. "I don't know about that." The rest turned to look at him "The god Chaos is leading his forces of disorder — and they're headed straight for us." He put his right hand on the grip of his sword, which he managed to carry on his back. "But I'm ready for whatever comes my way," he added, almost as an afterthought. The one with the water sword helped picked up the mood. "The tougher the enemy, the more fired up I get!" he yelled.
Seeing the positive responses that she had received, despite the circumstances, she was glad that she had picked this group. It was just a shame that those other three couldn't be a part of it as well, as they had been previously. "I thank you all – for your kind words..." she said them before the projections disappeared. With only the Warrior remaining as an audience, she continued to speak to him.
"Though what remains of this world is on the verge of collapses... I must hold it together until you find your crystals... Forgive me... I want to be with you... But allow me to rest... Then soon enough..." she said, almost begging for him to complete the quest quickly. After a slight pause, the Warrior responded.
"Cosmos... Your radiant light shall always be with us."
Cosmos paused a moment, reflecting on the words just said, before teleporting away, and safe in the secure knowledge that their task will be completed successfully, given enough time. But, could she allow them to have it, without doing the nefarious deed too early, she wondered.
The heroes set off on their individual journeys, confident in their abilities as colleagues and friends to do the right thing.